Search 1.x

How To Find Your Answer In Other People’s Discussions

Felix — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 05:58:00 +0000

People’s opinion and discussions often provide the best source of information. These discussions boards or forums are often attended and contributed by people who are both knowledgeable and passionate about a particular area. Best all, people have been having discussing on the web for a long time and chances are someone somewhere on the web has discussed or even answered the very questions you are asking now.

Whilst discussion board do not provide the ultimate truth on a particular topic, they are fantastic for:

» Product/travel location reviews and recommendations

» Troubleshooting or technical help with software/hardware products

» Get opinion or idea within a hobby or interest area

And whilst it is possible to search through discussion boards and forums using Google (is anything impossible with Google ?) by narrowing and limiting your searches to various discussions boards and , there is a better and easier way !

Omgili is a fantastic search engine that specialise in indexing and searching through discussion boards or forums.

Omgili claims to scans millions of online discussions worldwide in over 100,000 boards, forums and other discussion based resources and can differentiate between discussion entities such as topic, title, replies and discussion date.

Based on my personal experience, it works reasonably well! Once you have done a search, you can see the number of post and replies within a discussion thread (so you can skip the ones with zero replies!) and then narrow your search within a particular forum.

The other way to leverage discussion board effectively is to find the forum or discussion board offered by the company that offered you the products or services. These days, most companies will have some sort of community forum or discussion board on their website to foster a community, build loyalty and get the users to help each others ! For example, if you have issues or question about your iPhone or Mac, the Apple discussion board might be a good place to start your search.

The worst case is that you do come across a community discussion board that covers your area of interested but no one has answered your very specific question, you can always register and put the question out there and join the discussion!

And remember, try to give back to the web community by contributing to these discussion boards so that someone else can benefit from it the way you did!

UPDATE: Google Group Search has just started to include forum discussions in its search results along side results from Google Groups. Just goes to show how important are people’s discussions as a source of useful information!

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The Must Have Firefox Plugin To Customise Google Search

Felix — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 13:51:00 +0000

As good as Google is, have you ever wanted to try the same search on a different search engine after a your Google search disappointed you ? Did you give up on that idea because you didn’t want the hassle of typing in a new URL to go to a different search engine, type in the same keywords and do the same search again? I know I have :+P

Google has made us extremely dependant on it and very very lazy when it comes to search, mostly because the result Google returns on good most of the times!

For Firefox users, there is an extremely simple and power plugin to solve that problem and allow you to easily unleash the power of other search engines when Google did not answer your prayer.

The CustomiseGoogle Plugin is a Firefox plugin that gives you tonnes of feature to customise your Google search experience, some of the really handy features include:

» Remove Google Ads

» Rewrite links to point straight to the images in Google Images

» Add position counter and many others !!!

But the real killer features for searchers is the way it adds links to the top of Google search results that allows you search the same keyword on other search engines with a simple click of a button! Here are the links just to show you how easily accessible they are!

I must confess I would not have tried a lot of my Google searches on other search engines if it were not for the simplicity of this approach and I have benefited greatly for it!

You will also benefit by having these short cuts to other search engines and be a more productive and efficient searcher

The plugin creates different links depending whether you did a Google web search, blog search or image search and point you to the other leading search engines depending on what you are searching for.

You might ask, which alternative search engines should I try then ? I have blogged the merits of various alternative search engines in Search1.x, including how Technorati is a much superior blog search engine for blogs search, and why you should try live search. Better still, you should check out the Search 1.x Search Engine Directory for a comprehensive list of great specialist search engines broken down by their specialisation.

At the end of the day, it’s your own experience that counts, but at least the only thing stands between you and potentially better search results is just a click of a button now!

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What Can Semantic Search Engines Do For YOU?

Felix — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 05:49:00 +0000

Semantic Search engine has been all the rage for the last 2-3 years. Everyone knows Google as the big daddy of keyword search engines and has heard of how Semantic Search Engine can potentially be the next big thing. Why? because it sounds sexy, because it sounds mysterious, and I think we are all interested in the next Google beater and what the next generation of search can offer.

Whilst various researches have shown that a third of searchers don’t find their search on their first attempt due to poor understanding of the features and relevant syntax of the search engine, semantic search engine claim to fix that problem by allow searchers to use natural language and not having to learn the various search syntax to zero in on what they are looking for, in another word, ask a question and get THE answer. Sounds promising, but does it work ?

So firstly, let’s have a look at the contenders? Hakia and Powerset are probably two of the most well known self claimed semantic search engines. Powerset is well known for fact that it was bought by Microsoft but it never got past searching Wikipedia articles only. Hakia on the other hand, is a true general semantic web search engine that has been around for a few years.

But is it any good ? More importantly what’s in it for everyday searchers like you and me ? To quote Hakia, here is what Semantic Search Engine can do for you:

“Semantic search technology enables accurate retrieval of information via concept/meaning match. It is very effective, and perhaps the only method, in application to credible and dynamic content. Because most of the credible and dynamic content are statistically flat (infertile) for popularity algorithms to work effectively beyond common queries. “

To prove its point Hakia even puts various search phrase links on its homepage that do a head to head search comparison against Google. Here is one for a search for “longest strike in the history of railroads”

For the above example where the search phrase is a fairly specific question, there is no question that Hakia :

(1) Seems to understand the essence of the question

(2) Returned more relevant results, and

(3) The summary provided is also spot on in terms of the question asked

I like their approach in inviting users to do a head to head comparison with Google search results. It shows that their technology has merit against the best in the business and they have nothing to hide.

Some of the other search comparison that Hakia invites you to do and seems to return better results include:

- Does insurance cover brain surgery?

- Do DOE and EPA have conflicts?

- Is there any remedy to tuberculosis?

After a while, you get the idea that Hakia is designed and tuned to understand and deconstruct questions and then return the relevant answer with highly optimised summary.

And I must say, it does a pretty good job in answering natural language based questions.

I can’t help it but tried the ultimate question of them all “What is the meaning of life” and here is what I got:

I gathered this question (and many others!) has been asked a few times before and the engine has prepared an even extensive response of it! More prove that it’s pretty serious in providing the best quality answer to various questions.

So what’s verdict ? if you know what you are doing, Google is sill superior and can certainly give you the answer to any question you have if you know how to turn your question into the right syntax and format that Google are optimised at processing.

For a straight search on a question you have, Hakia provides an interesting alternative that seems to work pretty well and might just give you some insights that you didn’t think of when you asked the question.

Honestly, you should at least try out the comparison searches and make up your own minds!

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Essential Search Skills For Bloggers - Part 1

Felix — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:40:00 +0000

As a blogger, search is an essential skills. Being good at search allows you to come up with better blog ideas, research your topics quicker, write your blog in less time and promote your blog more effectively. Essentially, making your blog more successful whilst making your life easier, something every blogger strives for!

Here are some search skills that you might find useful as a blogger regardless or whether you are a novice blogger starting out or an experienced blogger because I have learnt and found them to be invaluable in making me a better blogger and my life easier!

PART 1: SEARCH FOR BETTER BLOG IDEAS

We all want people to read our blog and find out blog via search engines, hence it is important to write what people are interested in.There are various tools and that allow us to see the search volume and patterns of keywords so you can tune your message either to popular rising keywords or long tail keywords searches. It’s important to choose the most appropriate keywords for your content, so that your content answers the relevant questions that searchers are asking for, it’s all about the right keywords!

First up is Google Trend which is a basic tool that has been around for a while and it allows you to see some basic comparison stats between the keywords you are thinking of targeting. For example, say I am trying to work out whether to target the term “Search” or “Search Engine” and do a comparison search on Google trend.

The resulting page will show you a comparison trending of the two keywords which in this case is telling me that people search for the term “"Search” a lot more than “Search Engine” It also shows you the major news that effected the pattern of the trend in the past (sometimes you might want to know and write about!) as well as where the search originated from in case you want to geo-target your readers.

Google improved on Google Trend and created Google insight for Search which is a much more powerful tool to do keyword research. You can compare the trending of a particular keyword search for location and time ranges as well as put various filters on it (categories, etc.) Now if you search for the term “search engine tips” here is what you will get.

As well as the trending information, you also get other goodies such as Top Related Searches and Rising Related Searches ! By the look of this results, I really should be targeting “Searching Tips and “Google Tips” if I want some serious search engine traffic.

What if you want to find out what search engine traffic your competitors are getting so that you can try to get in on the action ? Google Trend for Website does just that for you. Say I am interested in what keyword traffick SearchEngine Watch is getting.

Not only does it give you other similar websites (Also Visited) to SearchEngineWatch.com (potential competitors), it also gives you some of the most popular keyword searches that took people to the website. Once again this particular search shows that I really need to prefix the keyword “Google” before all the keywords I plan on targeting !

There you have it, some basic keyword/topic search skills essential for Bloggers as you start to think about your next blog topic. Be sure to come back and check out other parts of this series on Essential Search Skills for Bloggers !

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Google Helps You Search For The Spoken Words

Felix — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 05:51:00 +0000

If you are like me, you probably have some interest in the 2008 US presidential election. In order to help you make your mind up in terms of who is the better candidate, you might have also been wondering about the position of the two presidential candidates on various issues. Well wonder no more, thanks to Google’s new audio indexing technology (Gaudi), you can search through exactly what the the candidates have said about various issues !

Google has tried to embed (and since taken off) this technology in various parts of YouTube, but I found the best place to test it out to be right from the Google Gaudi Labs Page.

For example, say you are interested in what Obama has said about “NASA”:

Google will find you all the clips where NASA was spoken by Obama (displayed on the left), you can then play the clips on the right hand side. If you click on the play button on the right hand side, Google will even take you directly to the section where NASA was spoken! It doesn”t get easier than this in terms of searching for what the candidates have said about a particular issue. At the moment you can also search through all the videos in the YouTube political channel to finds what any other politicians have said about certain issues, just click on "All Politicians"

Does it work ? Well the transcription is not perfect and the search sometimes find wrongly transcribed word, but it is certainly usable. I suspect the slight hit and miss nature of this technology is what’s holding Google back from general public consumption.

I blogged about Blinkx attempt in trying to index the spoken words, who certainly has a lead in this space of deep indexing of videos. Google is now well and truly venturing into this area, be it slowly and carefully as to not disappoint and damage its rock solid reputation in Search. There is no question that deep indexing of videos and transcription of spoke words has tremendous potential in unleashing the value of more unstructured contents.

BTW, you can also add this technology as a Google gadget at your iGoogle Page.

Check it out and let us know what you think !

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Simplest Way to Refine Your Search And Improve Search Result

Felix — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 13:18:00 +0000

One of the easiest way to improve search results is by either excluding certain keywords (i.e. the “-“ operator in Google) to filter out certain pages or to add certain keywords to zone into a particular area. Now there is a even simpler way to do this without learning the specific syntax!

Xippee is a plugin that make it much easier for you to refine your search using words from the results page.

The advantage is that sometimes you don’t really know what you need to filter out until you do a search, using the Xippee plugin, you can easily exclude certain keywords from the results page by just clicking on it right from the results page !

For example, let’s say I am interested in finding out how to extend the battery life of my iPhone and search for “iPhone Battery” in Google.

Now, there seems to be quite a lot of information about iPhone “Battery Replacement” which I have no interest what so ever and would consider them noise. I can either try to work out the correct syntax to exclude the keyword “Replacement” or I can use Xippee to select the word “Replacement” and deselect it right from the results page.

The end results is that Xippee updates the search query with the correct syntax to exclude the word “Replacement” from the search and returns a new sets of results that excludes any thing about iPhone battery replacement!

Xippee works as a plugin in Internet Explorer 7, Firefox, Opera and Safari and it automatically adjust the syntax as you use it with Google, Yahoo or Live Search.

For those of you who are just not operator inclined or does not like the thought of having to type more than your search keywords into the search box, this make it much easier to get better search results.

Sure the new Google suggest feature tries to guess what you are searching for and suggest other keywords to go with the one you typed in the search box. But the ability to select a word right from the results page and exclude it in the results is cool. It is simple, easy and effective, I would not be surprised if other search vendors start to include the functionality in their browser search bar.

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The Ultimate Search Engine Directory!

Felix — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 22:50:00 +0000

Whilst everybody love and use Google, I think a lot of people are curious and would like to try out new search engines that might provide a better search experience. This is particularly true for power searchers or people who require functionality beyond general web search. On top of that, I think everybody wants to know who the next Google beater is!

I have been searching but yet to come up with a good, up to date, human edited and well categorised search engine directory. I want a directory where I can select and try search engines that are up to date (still alive!) and categorised by their speciality: universal search, blog search, mobile search etc. etc. Since I can’t find one, I figured I create one myself!

Not all new search engines are useful or worth the bookmarking but there are certainly some very good new search technologies out there that are worth knowing about and goes beyond what the general Google Search provides. I blogged about how Technorati provides a much more superior blog search experience and how Chacha provides a unique human assisted search engine. There are so much innovation going on in various areas of search, the directory provides a place to capture it all and present the worthwhile ones in a useful format.

I have started the directory at the Search 1.x Search Engine Directory for everyone’s benefit and hope to build and maintain it to make it even more useful and comprehensive. There is even a submit section for people to let me know of search engines that we should all know about!

So check out the directory, submit new search engines and let the community know what you think !

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Why You Should Try Live Search

Felix — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 05:56:00 +0000

Extending from my previous post on why you should try Yahoo Search, I want to share with you some of the latest innovation from Live Search. Thanks to Amit from the Digital Inspiration who pointed me to these tips! The latest round of innovation from Live Search include various things including previewing of videos and clipping and saving of image search results but for me, the below innovation around the core search functionality really differentiate Live Search from Google and I think a lot of users will find useful.

1. Find pages that contain links to documents, MP3 files, videos and zips

Using the Google “filetype” operator, you always could find specific non-html documents with the keywords you are interested in. For example here is a search for “iPhone filetype:pdf” and Google returns links to the actual PDF documents related to “iPhone that it found

But what if I am interested in a web pages that CONTAIN LINKS to various types of documents, kind of a content aggregation page where links to useful resources in specific file format are compiled. Specifically what if I want to find web pages about iPhone on the AT&T website that contains PDF documents ? Whilst can’t really do this easily using Google search, I can do this quite easily with Live Search using the query “site:att.com iphone contains:pdf” which finds me this page with lots of PDF files about the iPhone !

You can use the “contains” operator to find documents, mp3 files, videos and zips. I am sure it will come in handy for me sometime in the future :+)

2. Limit you searches to sites that contain RSS

Looking for sites that contain RSS feeds so that you can keep up with whatever you were searching for ? The “hasfeeds:” operator allow you to find websites that matches your keyword search and also has an RSS feed on the page. Here my attempt to find sites about “iPhone Jailbreak” and I can subscribe to.

3. Get Live Search Results via RSS feeds

For those of us who now depend on RSS feeds to help us consume the vast amount of information, having your search results as RSS feeds has a number of advantages. Whilst you can always get search results via email using the Google Alert services but strangely Google still hasn’t gotten around to adding the search results RSS subscription functionality. You can however use a third party service feedmysearch to achieve the same thing.

With Live Search, there is an undocumented way to turn search results into feeds directly from Live Search.

Once you have completed your search (“iphone jailbreak” for example)

http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=iphone+jailbreak&go=&form=QBRE

You just need to append “&format=rss” to the end of the url. so the above query can be turned into an rss feed by using this url

http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=iphone+jailbreak&go=&form=QBRE&format=rss

You can then subscribe to it using your favourite RSS readers. Undocumented, yes, but works like a charm !

Whilst these new features might not warrant a complete switch to Live Search from Google, they give you more options when it comes to general web search and can add to your toolbox of Search kit and make you more productive.

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Best Video Search Engine for iPhone

Felix — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:57:00 +0000

iPhone has great web connectivity, beautiful big screen and a built in media and YouTube player so searching for and playing videos on the iPhone is bound to be a killer web app.

Thankfully someone realised this and came up with a very good product: Vtap. Vtap video search engine was built from the ground up for mobile phones and not only index and allow you to search videos from all over the web including YouTube, MySpace, Dailymotion and many others, it then encodes the video on the fly and stream the appropriate format to your phone instantaneously!

I checked it out on my new iPhone and it works brilliantly!

Vtap gets around the problem of no Flash support on the iPhone and plays the video either via the built in YouTube and quick player after encoding the video into iPhone compatible format. The interface is slick and you can also subscribe to certain video feeds similar to the video feeds on YouTube.

Not only is Vtap the best video search app I have seen on any portable devices, I am not also very excited about the bound less possibilities mobile search technology will bring in the future.

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3 Reasons Why Search Toolbar Makes You A Better Searcher

Felix — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 07:07:00 +0000

When it comes to increasing general web search productivity, nothing beats installing a search toolbar on your favourite browser. All the Search providers have them freely available for both Internet Explorer and Firefox. You can find the Google Toolbar here, Windows Live Toolbar here and the Yahoo Toolbar here.

I used Google Toolbar on Firefox personally, but they all have very similar functionailities, here is what a Google tool bar look like.

Whilst most browser these days already have a built-in search box on top, for me, search toolbar is still a must for me and they make me a better and more efficient searcher. Whilst toolbar these days provide tones of features including translation and spell check, the three main reasons of why they make me a better searcher are:

(1) Instant Access to All Search Services: Whether you want to search for web sites, news, images or even location, you can do it all with a click of a mouse button from the toolbar !

(2) PageRank: Google toolbar displays the PageRank of the page you are visiting and gives you a general guide as to the importance of the page (according to Google). The longer the Green bar, the more attention I pay to a particular page.

(3) Keyword Tracking Functionality: To me, this is the killer functionality provided by the Google toolbar. Once you have arrived at a results page from a keyword search. Google toolbar allows you to (1) Highlight all the keywords used for the search (in different colors!) (2) Click on the keywords used for the search and highlight them individually for you.

When I arrive at a site from a Google search now, no longer will I need to go to Edit->Find from the menu, type in the keyword I want to find on the page and press enter, I can do keywords search using ONE CLICK ! Major time saver and productivity gain.

Search toolbar is the first thing I install these days when I upgrade my browser as I almost feel lost without them. Go on, give it a go if you are not already using them, I promise you will not go back to a browser without one once you use them.Similar Posts: